Sardinia, Indiana, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
On paper, cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens all suit these conditions — on the ground, soil, sun, and drainage make the final call.
Even in Sardinia, no two yards are alike.
A low spot, a south-facing slope, or a stand of trees moves the frost date and sun across a single Sardinia lot. Enter your address and we'll score 1,086 plants against your land's actual soil, sun, and frost.
We read public map data around Sardinia — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Sardinia — the short answer
Sardinia, Indiana: USDA zone 6b, about 218 days between hard freezes, across 81 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 2
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 6
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~218
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 81 acres
- US Census TIGER/Line 2025
Every figure names the dataset it came from. Hard-freeze dates are this town’s own 28°F normals: light frosts run a few weeks past them, and tender transplants usually wait 2–3 weeks after the last hard freeze.
Hardiness Zone Range
Zone 6b is Sardinia's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Sardinia's 218-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Sardinia
Each reading below is measured for Sardinia itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredSardinia runs about 218 days between hard freezes — a long growing season.
There is slack for succession plantings and slow-finishing crops: many vegetables can be sown twice, and the heat-lovers have time to ripen fully.
Plan a second sowing of quick crops after the first comes out, and use the fall window most gardeners let sit idle.
NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Winter hardiness
MeasuredSardinia sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b.
The zone sets which perennials, shrubs, and fruit trees live through an average winter here — a plant rated for a colder zone is a safe bet, one rated warmer needs winter protection or gets treated as an annual.
Match perennials and fruit to the zone before you buy, so nothing you plant is a gamble against the cold.
USDA PHZM 2023
The kind of country Sardinia is in
Sardinia sits in the Eastern Corn Belt Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Sardinia's own centroid rather than borrowed from Decatur County.
What Grows in Sardinia
Every plant below cleared Sardinia's own zone 6b and its 218-day season. Each card opens that plant's Indiana profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Sardinia?
Rarely: the season closes in stages, not all at once, and each stage has its crops. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 5; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 2 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 6 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. A long window like this one runs successions deep into fall — and even its last weeks take quick greens and garlic.
Documented around Sardinia
Survey cells within 31 miles of Sardinia checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 43 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Sardinia
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Sardinia. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- JOHNSON'S BODY SHOPBrownfields · 1.7 mi
- EASTERN BARTHOLOMEW WATERPFAS · 2.6 mi
- WESTPORT GAS STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.1 mi
- L & P Grocery IncorporatedUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.1 mi
- DAVES SERVICEUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.4 mi
- Vaughns Auto ServiceUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.5 mi
- Kova Fertilizer & Agricultural IncorporatedUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.7 mi
- WESTPORT TOWN HALLUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.7 mi
- IGC-WESTPORT PURCHASE POINTBrownfields · 3.9 mi
- GRAMMER IND INCBrownfields · 5.0 mi
- CRITZER WELL DRILLINGUnderground Storage Tanks · 5.0 mi
- ACA FOOD MART INCORPORATEDUnderground Storage Tanks · 5.0 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Sardinia's center, not your beds. Run your own address for what's upwind of you specifically.
Environmental Intelligence
The counts behind that headline — every source type on the record near Sardinia.
Total Sites
90
within ~10 miles of Sardinia
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
12 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Sardinia
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Sardinia
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Sardinia, Toxics Release Inventory runs higher than the national average — 12 sites within ~10 miles of Sardinia. It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
Toxics Release Inventory: TRI facilities report annual chemical releases to air, water, and land.
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Check your specific parcel in Sardinia
Get exact proximity distances to contamination sources for your specific parcel — plus soil, sun, drainage, and 1,086 plant recommendations.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Sardinia average
Your land is one point inside Sardinia
Everything above resolves to Sardinia as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 81 acres. Your parcel is one point inside that footprint. Slope, tree cover, a low spot that pools cold air, and what is in the soil are all resolved at the address, and none of them are visible at town scale. That is the honest boundary of this page, and the reason the next step is a reading of your own ground rather than a better local average.
Your Lot vs the Sardinia Average
Sardinia Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Sardinia
- ●One soil character for all of Sardinia
- ●Frost dates read at Sardinia's scale: Apr 2 to Nov 6
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Sardinia's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Sardinia
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Sardinia, Indiana — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Sardinia averages can't show:
We read public map data around Sardinia — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Sardinia average
How we know this about Sardinia
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read at this town’s own centroid; hard-freeze dates from NOAA 1991–2020 28°F normals at Sardinia’s own record; boundaries and acreage from US Census TIGER/Line 2025; the contamination records from the federal sources named in their beats above. Soil is not read at town grain anywhere on this page — there is no town-resolution survey in our data, which is why you will find no soil grid here rather than a statewide one wearing a local label. The resolution ledger below names every figure this page inherited.
Common questions about Sardinia
When does frost risk typically end in Sardinia?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Sardinia typically lands around Apr 2, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — earlier than the light-frost dates most charts quote. That marks the hard freeze, not the last light frost — lighter frosts keep biting past it, which is why tender transplants here wait until about Apr 23.
When is the first frost in Sardinia?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Sardinia typically arrives around Nov 6, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 23, so the watching starts about Oct 7 — about 218 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Sardinia?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Sardinia sees about 218 frost-free days — roughly Apr 2 through Nov 6, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 23 to Oct 23, about 183 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Sardinia?
The federal record around Sardinia shows 90 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (42), the nearest Brownfields record about 1.7 miles out — a typical footprint for a growing area, and proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard. It's worth seeing which recorded sites sit closest to where you grow, and testing the soil before new food beds near any of them.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Sardinia?
From about Oct 7 the job here turns from planting to protecting — the last start even a 30-day crop can finish. As the season closes around the first 28°F hard freeze near Nov 6 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals), three moves buy time: row cover or an old sheet over tender plants on still, clear nights; water the soil the afternoon before a freeze, so it holds warmth overnight; and harvest tomatoes, peppers and basil before Nov 6. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Sardinia's scale — its 6b band and its 218-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Sardinia's numbers: we read soil, sun, drainage and frost at your exact address. Try it for 14 days — no card required.
What this page reads at Sardinia’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Sardinia's own scale — its own ~218-day season between 28°F freezes, the 81 acres it covers and 90 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Sardinia's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Sardinia's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 2 and Nov 6 and the ~218-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 90 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Sardinia, the closest Brownfields record about 1.7 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Sardinia's boundary and the 81 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~218-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Sardinia's own centroid, the Eastern Corn Belt PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Sardinia checked, none carrying a detectionlydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Sardinia's 81 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Decatur County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Decatur County
- The growing challenges every Indiana grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Indiana
- Butterfly and beetle records, and the farmland pesticide estimate — all published county-widefrom Decatur County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Sardinia's 81 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Sardinia you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 81 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Brownfields record about 1.7 miles out, measured from the town centrehow we read the record →
- Where cold air settles, which slopes face the sun, and which way the wind runs on your own ground — measured at your address, and averaged away by any Sardinia-wide figureread your own land →
More in Indiana
Wider growing context
What grows across IndianaSardinia sits outside our named growing regions, so Indiana as a whole is its closest context here.